Phone call never sounded so sweet

Editor’s note: Staff Sgt. Miguel A. Rivas writes a regular column about being deployed from Fort Carson to the Middle East. His two daughters live near Greeley.

Dear Maria and Megan,

An amazing thing happened on the way to a war. I got a call from my daughter.

Now you may not think that is a big deal, but it was the first one I have ever received. No way? Way.

I am only two hours away when Interstate 25 is not clogged with slippery snow or frustrated commuters. But all of those unanswered letters and cards were forgotten for 27 minutes. Thank you, Megan.

No earth-shattering topics really. Megan, you told me about how Camala has returned with her migrant family back to Mexico. Luckily, little Alberto showed up as the next kid at Wiggins Elementary. Ha! Another new kid to practice Spanish with. Joy!

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I enjoyed your story about how your loving teacher, Mrs. Martha Snider, gets the attention of her class.

As she glides from desk to desk looking over her flock of little lambs, she knows what to say when she sees a mistake in someone’s work.

“I am going to kiss your face,” coos Mrs. Snider.

The image of slapping knuckles with a ruler has no place in that laboratory of learning. It was good talking about such things with my daughter.

Talking to loved ones is something that people with normal jobs take for granted. Even when your spouse or dad takes a business trip, they are a phone call away.

That is especially true with the advent of cell phone technology.

But what if you were in a place that having a cell phone might cost you your life? What if finding an outlet to plug in your charger were more difficult than slicing through hundreds of miles of Iraqi territory?

Wouldn’t that be a strange place?

And then there is the problem of contacting those poor souls who have been floating on big clunky boats filled with 4th Infantry Division armored vehicles and equipment.

A typical Linebacker crew consists of four soldiers. I serve as the commander. I am the guy in charge. In my case, I am also the section sergeant that helps maneuver a second Linebacker.

My weapons guy is called the gunner. I put him on target. It is his job to eliminate the threat to my guys and the mission objective. We can think about the human cost later.

The driver sits in his corner where he drives this monstrosity, a souped up Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

The loader rides in the back where he has no clear view of where we are going. He hangs on as the machine lumbers across the landscape. In doing this, he ignores the deafening noise and what we affectionately call Bradley bites.

Getting all of this right does take practice known as crew drills. We also have Linebacker Gunner Skills Test. Making our Linebacker go takes vigilance and the help of the headquarter platoon mechanics.

We’ve done such things in Garrison, at a Fort Carson summer field exercise called Mountain Strike and during deployments to Fort Irvin, Calif., and Fort Polk, La.

We will soon do it in the Middle East.

If we can only find a place to download the stuff.

When you hear about the cargo ships floating out there in the Mediterranean Sea, please remember my gunner. He got lucky and was selected as a supercargo.

He is super because he knows how to drive almost anything in our inventory. The easy part was taking the trip from the Texas coast to the Mediterranean. Trying to convince the most Islamic country in NATO to accept us is proving a tad bit more difficult.

Almost as difficult is trying to reach my gunner, as his wife so desperately wants to. Little Sammy doesn’t sleep or eat as well as he did when Dad was home in Colorado. Mrs. Rourke worries about paying bills and keeping the home together. While many of us are anxious about getting this little show going, she misses her husband.

Which only made the call from my daughter a little bit sweeter.

Staff Sgt. Miguel A. Rivas is a 13-year veteran with the Army’s C/1-44 Air Defense Artillery based at Fort Carson. His two daughters, Maria and Megan Rivas, live near Greeley.